


slug ten drinks, i won't get pickled

by SafelyCapricious



Series: shaking up and breaking down [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Haruno Sakura, F/M, Haruno Sakura-centric, Kind of Time Travel kind of Not, Not Canon Compliant, Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: “So what do you want to specialize in, brats?” Shisui’s voice cuts through the silence like he’s continuing a conversation and not starting one in what was, only very recently, a very peaceful room.Sai looks up from his coloring, a bird this time, his face contorted in a way Sakura has never seen his adult face -- even after he got better at expressing himself -- and the face makes her want to laugh but the fact that she saved him soon enough that he can make that face makes her want to cry. But she’s not allowed to cry, if she starts crying she’s not sure she’ll stop, and that would definitely freak Sai and Shin out and that would be bad.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Sai, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Itachi
Series: shaking up and breaking down [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952911
Comments: 19
Kudos: 222





	slug ten drinks, i won't get pickled

**Author's Note:**

> It's only been four months! Super proud of myself. Sorry for anyone who might've been under the mistaken impression that I'm even remotely quick about writing things. 
> 
> Title from I Can't Decide by the Scissor Sisters, per usual for this series.
> 
> Please do read the other parts of [shaking up and breaking down](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952911) or this might not make sense. 
> 
> Uh, the adventures of feral time traveling Sakura continue!

“So what do you want to specialize in, brats?” Shisui’s voice cuts through the silence like he’s continuing a conversation and not starting one in what was, only very recently, a very peaceful room. 

Sai looks up from his coloring, a bird this time, his face contorted in a way Sakura has never seen his adult face -- even after he got better at expressing himself -- and the face makes her want to laugh but the fact that she saved him soon enough that he _can_ make that face makes her want to cry. But she’s not allowed to cry, if she starts crying she’s not sure she’ll stop, and that would definitely freak Sai and Shin out and that would be bad. 

Them having to deal with Shisui’s interrogation on top of her crying just wouldn’t be fair.

So no crying. 

“Are you an idiot?” Sai asks, brow furrowed and looking legitimately concerned, and Sakura lets herself laugh. 

“I want to train in bukijutsu,” Shin says, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully copies a sealing scroll. His lines are still a little shaky and it probably won’t be usable, but Sakura has the absurd desire to hang it on the wall and admire it like her mom used to do with her abstract flower art. 

She leans over to ruffle his hair. “We’ll get you a teacher then, I know just the person who can --” Sakura’s thoughts grind to a halt.

Oh no, oh _no_! How could she have forgotten Tenten was — obviously a child still but in the _orphanage_ \-- with Sai and Shin and Sasuke and Naruto she’d thought everyone was safe but that’s not _everyone_ and with Danzo not able to have the boys maybe he’s gone back to the orphanage and -- plans to rescue Tenten and Lee to start, dance behind her eyes, as she mentally goes through the list of her friends and the rest should be with their parents so that’s fine.

It would be fairly easy, she thinks, to convince Gai to just adopt the boy, though she’ll have to deal with Kakashi-sensei being all suspicious about it. She’s not sure what to do about Tenten but surely she can come up with something and make it work…but --

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other children and just because she doesn’t _know_ them doesn’t mean she can just _leave_ them and -- 

“Fuck,” she breathes, and sits down heavily on the floor, ignoring the attention her bloodless appearance and swearing has drawn from the rest of the room, “it’s going to be such a pain to kill him.” 

***

“I bet that I can drink more than you,” says a pink blur, leaning against the equally blurry edge of the bar. 

“Eh?” Tsunade wrinkles her nose and hiccups, “Like hell you can!” 

White slashes across the head region of the blur, “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow -- try to wait until ten in the morning to start drinkin’, okay? Bye!” and the blur is gone. 

Tsunade’s drinking hallucinations just keep getting weirder and weirder. 

***

“Ready to lose?” a chit, who looks painfully young in a bright red shirt and dark pants, chirps at her as she sits down. 

“Who the hell are you?” Tsunade demands, eyes narrowed. 

“Sakura,” the girl says, turning her head and smiling. Tsunade almost revisits her estimation of age -- the body looks young, sure, under twenty, but those eyes? Those are not young eyes. If she didn’t know better she’d say that those eyes had been in war -- but the girl is too young for that. Probably just a bad homelife, she decides, and starts to turn away -- it’s none of her business. “And I bet you I can drink more than you.” 

Tsunade scoffs and looks the girl up and down, “What do I get when I win?” Shizune is going to be upset that barely a day after she’d left Tsunade’s side she’s already started betting, but she’s never been the boss of her, for all that she’s terribly bossy, so she won’t really be surprised. 

The girl smiles and pulls out a wad of money, thicker than her fist. Tsunade is confident she can win...but she also knows she cannot put that much money in the pot, even if she won’t have to pay out. “I hear you have a summoning contract, I’ll sign it if I win, you can keep it,” the girl provides without prompting. 

Tsunade laughs and lets her shoulders relax. So the girl thinks she can just _sign_ a contract and that’s all she needs to do? She mentally scales the girl’s age back -- she can’t see a forehead protector, though she is wearing cuffs that contain chakra -- probably something that’s supposed to keep alcohol from affecting her, given the bet. Well, girl’ll learn, those sorts of things don’t work well, and even if they do and the girl somehow miraculously wins the slugs’ll take one look at her and laugh themselves silly. Really, it’s a bet with no downsides! “You’re on!” she announces and slaps a hand on the bar top to summon the beleaguered bartender. “Two bottles of soju, and keep it coming!” 

The girl smiles, sad, like she didn’t want to actually have to start drinking and Tsunade privately bets herself the pretty little flower -- Sakura, what a ridiculous name for a girl with pink hair -- will be down before the second round. But she clinks her glass and tosses it back, only making a slight face at the taste. 

***

Itachi waits until noon to go to the bar. Sakura hadn’t wanted him appearing at all -- claiming that Tsunade-sama would be wary with an Uchiha present. And while hearing the honorific from non-konohan nin wasn’t unusual, there was something about how Sakura sounded when she said it, almost slurring the S until it sounded like Sh-aaahma, and the shadows that danced in her eyes that made him want to question her. Of course, he almost always wanted to find out her secrets, but it was a subtle business, chipping away her armor a miniscule flake at a time and waiting. 

But Sakura had left the inn before eight, and he was confident that by noon she would have either successfully talked Tsunade into a drinking contest and they’d both be noticing things less, or she would have failed and avoiding wouldn’t help her any. 

They are the brightest point in the bar when he enters. Sakura has her head thrown back and is laughing bright and carefree in a way that makes his lips twitch, and Tsunade is snickering into a curled palm. He takes a seat in one of the furthest tables from them, and avoids looking at them directly for any length of time. Sakura is right, Tsunade is a legend and would, undoubtedly, realize if someone was staring at her. Although it’s not like half the bar isn’t doing so anyways. 

There are so many bottles around the pair of them that he wonders, fleetingly, if the bar is, actually, going to run out of alcohol during this experience. 

He watches them take another three cups each, Sakura telling some story with expansive hand gestures and dramatic faces that has Tsunade cackling, before switching on his sharingan and watching. Neither of them are making any hand signs, but he’s sure they’re both doing something to cheat, there are too many cups and they’re both still just a bit too bright eyed even with good tolerance. 

***

“Howshu shtill shorber?” Tsunade’s tongue is not, despite her best efforts, moving how she tells it too. “Yersh scheating,” she accuses, after a moment of thought. 

The pink haired demon furrows her brow, “how would I cheat?” 

“Shachra burnsh al--al--shish boozshe awaah,” she tries, tongue refusing to name its poison. 

The cheating cheater who cheats turns her cup in her hand and tips it back, making a face -- still! -- at the taste. “Like what you’ve been doing?” she asks. 

“Yesh,” Tsunade confirms before she realizes what just happened, and she narrows her eyes -- or tries to, at least -- and points a wavering finger at her opponent. “S’hno rule againsht it!” she protests. 

Sakura grins, “Yeah, we didn’t come up with any rules against anything, really. Including burning the alcohol off with chakra. You’re behind, by the way.” And she nudges forward five cups. 

Tsunade wishes she could sneer, but it’s beyond her abilities at the moment. The problem with burning away the alcohol in her system is that a little gets through, every time, and once it starts to build up then more starts to get through and -- and the more that gets through then the more that gets through and -- it’s not like she couldn’t burn it _all_ away and be fighting fit in a moment, but even with her now admitted cheating up until this point that would just be ridiculous and -- 

She only makes it through four of the cups before she gives up and, in a slur that might be decipherable to words for Shizune and probably no one who hasn’t spent significant time with her, she passes out on the bar. 

***

The girl is there, again, the next morning. Looking cheerful and fresh and -- Tsunade wants to hate her, but honestly she’s a little impressed. 

“You said I won, last night, so lemme sign that contract and I’ll be out of your hair!” For all that she’s practically bouncing her voice is soft enough not to bother her head and Tsunade tells herself she’s not grateful. 

“It won’t work, you know, just signing it out of the blue isn’t going to do anything,” she says, trying for annoyed and mostly hitting apologetic. 

Sakura shrugs and makes grabby hands. Tsunade sighs and hands her the contract and a pen.

The girl at least knows enough to ignore the pen, putting it off to the side as she carefully unrolls the bottom of the scroll. She only unrolls it enough to see the bottom of Tsunade’s own signature, but not all of it, before stopping. And then she presses her pointer finger against her thumb and if Tsunade hadn’t been watching she would’ve never seen the green glow of medical chakra, and when her fingers separate there’s blood on the tip of her finger that she uses to sign her name.

Shameless, Tsunade peers to see what’s written -- surely Sakura isn’t _actually_ her name? -- but all that she’s put down is “Sakura” and a smiley face alongside a very careful thumbprint...to which she’s added two little antennae. 

“You are a brat, aren’t you,” Tsunade’s eyes narrow further. “How did you drink so much, anyways? Those cuffs?” She’s never seen chakra cuffs that would work on something like alcohol but, well, she’s willing to be convinced. 

“Hm?” Sakura blinks up at her. “Oh, no. These block my chakra flow. I just burned the alcohol off.”

“So did I,” Tsunade frowns as Sakura blows on the contract to dry it, waving a hand over it and just generally looking ridiculous. 

“Yeah but, you did it when it was already in your system,” Sakura points out with a grin, “I did it when it was still in the cup. But it was fun! We should do it again someday, but not today, okay bye!” And then, faster than Tsunade thought she could move the girl is out the door. She grabs up the scroll and storms after her, making it outside just in time to see Sakura stop beside a tall man with long dark hair and his eyes are dark when he glances over at her, but Tsunade would recognize an Uchiha anywhere, even without the clan symbol he’s not hiding on his back. 

And then the two are gone. 

Probably back to Konoha. 

But the girl, at least, will be back. After all, with a propensity for medical chakra use she’ll probably want to badger Tsunade into being her teacher before too long -- and she doesn’t even know the hand signs to summon, and without them signing the contract is less than useless. 

So she’ll be back, sooner rather than later. 

And Tsunade will make her grovel, a little, she thinks, before accepting her as an apprentice. 

But for now there’s still alcohol to be drunk and time to kill before Shizune comes back.

***

Sakura stops abruptly about an hour away from the outermost sweep range of the Village and wanders into the brush that edges the path.

He waits for a moment before following. She’s crouched down on her heels by a patch of mushrooms that she is, very carefully and using senbon not to touch, placing on a sealing scroll. “Could you grab some of those purple flowers, by the base of that tree?” she asks, not looking up. “They’re pretty harmless as they are, but I can get them if you’re nervous. I wasn’t sure how much of a hurry we’re in.”

He considers her for a moment before humming. “While I’m sure Shisui would prefer we have not left at all, I think we have time. But I can get them.” And he wanders over to the tree to collect the _digitalis_ she’s asked for. He’s not sure if she genuinely thinks he doesn’t know what _Amanita_ look like, or what they do — or what foxglove can do for that matter — or if she’s just trying to give him deniability.

She’s been unhappy since she announced she needed to leave the village — tense around the mouth and in the twitch of her fingers. It’s gone now, as she breathes smooth and even and gathers her poisons.

He’s glad, he doesn’t want her to be unhappy.

“Alright,” she says, smiling up at him and accepting the bunch of flowers he holds out to her to seal in with the mushrooms. “Home?”

“Home,” he agrees, offering her a hand and a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like we're starting to get shippy? Yes? No? Just me? In any case, come visit me at the [Sakura Discord Server](https://discord.gg/D4sTjTS3Z9) if you'd like, or find me on [tumblr](https://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat. Or leave comments here! 
> 
> As always I'm super behind on comment replies, I'm sorry, I love you all. Please let me know what you think! <3 <3 <3


End file.
